


Promise Letter

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Love Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23577763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: The little notes started as texts. The letters came later and were much more important.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Nyx Ulric
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	Promise Letter

The notes started as texts. As little affirmations of a safe return, of a good day, a good morning, a good night. They started with the familiar chime and light on their respective phones at all manner of day and night. A cheerful little announcement that would pull Noctis from a game and Nyx from whatever task he had set himself to, to make his place feel more alive. Make him feel more alive. 

The notes started as trades between them. Silly little messages designed to make them both smile. 

Neither knew really when they moved to something more tangible. 

Nyx had left a note on Noctis’ fridge one morning as he left for work: _I’m getting you some decent coffee._

It had been scribbled in Nyx’s easy scrawl on the little notepads usually meant for shopping lists and reminders to go to bed at a decent time. It was scribbled in a lazy arc, ignoring all manner of lines and convention set out on the notepad and finished with a doodle of a crowned heart. 

Noctis had stuffed it into a folio used in meetings in the Citadel before Ignis could see it. 

Noctis had left a note on Nyx’s scarred counter top one day before Nyx returned from a scheduled tour of the siege line at the Western front. A scrap plucked from the mail that still insisted on being delivered to the little apartment nestled deep in the city depths, as if everything was normal. As if Nyx was home and safe and willing to sort through his mail at the little collected of rusted boxes in the building lobby. Noctis had stolen the scrap from an envelop in the pile one morning as he left, his stomach in anxious knots as he checked the dates, the reminders, the bed that he had carefully remade after waking up and pretending he hadn’t laundered the old sweater of Nyx’s he had pulled on because he had forgotten it in the rest of his house-sitting duties. 

He doodled a hasty little star on the square of blank space and scratched out a more formal welcome home. Scratched out a more honest plea for safe travels below that.

_Got your sweater, Hero._ He had settled on teasing in the end. _You’re not getting it back._

It became a tradition between them; Nyx received spare keys wrapped in a sweet little reminder not to stay away from the luxury apartment in the downtown heart of the sprawling city. Noctis had found invitations to dinners and drinks in his folios and files. 

At some point, the notes lost their practical nature. 

Wishes for good days, promises of safe returns, deals for a mutual survival and health shared between them started to appear in pockets and in books. Post-its stuck to chests and pillows, crumpled absently by sleep or stuck to mirrors for the morning. Scraps of paper passed between them, crumpled to a ball and thrown at each other with a grin from across a room, or pressed into hands as they passed each other in the quiet halls of the Citadel. 

The letters started on Noctis’ birthday. The both remembered that. 

Nyx had left a letter, a promise, a confession on Noctis’ table as he left the morning after. As he swore to himself not to over think it in the ride back out to tour. He had left a ring with it. His father’s ring, dug out from a box of tattered keepsakes and pictures he had tried to ignore for years. In the letter, he explained the pattern engraved on the ring and the promises that were supposed to be made with it. 

When he woke after the tour in a medic bay, he could feel his heart stop when he saw the envelope on the bedside table with his name in Noctis’ familiar hand and a little star doodled in a corner. Even in the dim light of the quiet medical ward, where his comrades lay sedated or in a restless sleep only possible in the pungent sterility of hospitals, he could see the bulge of a round object in the envelope. He could make out the size and substance of it, and prayed he was wrong despite the resignation that settled at the back of his throat. 

He struggled to draw the curtains around the narrow bed, and turned on the light with a tug of a plastic cord despite the searing pain shooting through his damaged shoulder.

A bead rolled out to his waiting palm, and the anxiety disappeared beneath the glare of light reflected across the smooth surface as he rolled in for inspection. 

The letter that came with it was short, and simple. And relief broke against him like a wave. 

_Of course, Hero. I promise._


End file.
